Generally, an electrical connector typically includes some form of insulating or dielectric housing which mounts one or more conductive terminals for engaging the terminals of a complementary mating connector. One connector may include receptacle or female terminals for receiving the plug or male terminals of a complementary mating connector. Typical male terminals include flat or blade-like contact portions.
For instance, FIG. 16 herein shows a fuse-type electrical connector assembly as seen in Japanese Utility Model Registration Nos. 2570607, 2573677 and 2600992. As seen in FIG. 16, one or more electrical fuses, generally designated 18, include blade-like terminals or fuse tails 20. An electrical terminal, generally designated 22, is stamped and formed of conductive sheet spring metal and includes a box-like engagement section 22a having a pair of contacts 22b integral with the front end thereof and a terminating section 22c at the rear end thereof. The terminating section includes a pair of crimp arms 22d for crimping onto the outer insulation or cladding of an electrical wire, along with a pair of crimp arms 22e for crimping onto an exposed conductive core of the wire. Each fuse tail 20 is inserted between the confronting contacts 22b of one of the terminals 22 to be pinched by the opposing contacts with a predetermined pressure.
FIG. 17 shows another electrical terminal, generally designated 24, for mating with a blade-like terminal 26 as disclosed in Japanese Utility Model Registration Nos. 2543561 and 2602692. As shown, electrical terminal 24 includes a rectangular base 24a having longitudinal raised ridges 24b. A pair of spring arms 24c are curled over opposite sides of the base and include contact portions 24d. When the blade-like terminal 26 is inserted into electrical terminal 24, the blade-like terminal is pinched between ridges 24b of base 24a and contacts 24d under a predetermined pressure.
In order to increase the resistance to removal of blade-like terminals 20 and 26 from electrical terminals 22 and 24, respectively, the electrical terminals can be constructed to increase the predetermined pressure by which the blade-like terminals are pinched. However, by increasing the removal pressure, the insertion pressure of the blade-like terminals correspondingly is increased and this is undesirable because the mating of the connectors is made difficult The present invention is directed to solving these problems by providing an electrical terminal with an increased resistance against removal of the mating terminal without increasing the insertion force between the terminals.